#i am once again making meme slides when i should be packing up boxes. but i did this for The People

[scattered-winter]

new show new slides you know how it be

[brooklynislandgirl]

Danny and beth

Married Life Meme || Accepting

leaves their dirty clothes on the floor

The water is cold, harsh and stinging as it sluices down Danny’s body like a fire-hose. Soaks him head to toe and he’s scrubbing at his face, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. The soap practically peels his skin, smells more like isopropyl alcohol than herbal essences which seems counterproductive all things considered. There’s no tile, no smell of coffee and sausage cooking and underpinning it all is a slick, sick taste of fear coating the back of his throat. The decontamination shower is built to withstand any condition it is placed in, and so should be the cops using it. A shudder of revulsion sweeps through him right as there’s a change in pressure and temperature.

“Nice glutes,” she says behind more cheerfully than she has any right to be. He can almost feel the way her eyes slide over him before they’re back to back and she turns on the next spray. He glances over his shoulder and sees she’s thrown her uniform on the ground atop his and there’s someone in a full hazmat suit collecting them, tossing them into a bag. They’ll be replaced free of charge, but not really the point. He notices out of her boots she’s quite a bit shorter than him, out of the whole kit, slender as a willow branch. Bare feet. Tiny ankles. Shapely calves if you discounted the scar, and he stares at that just a little longer than he should because Danny’s married not dead, and she’s a cute girl, his partner. Trails higher, avoiding the curve of her backside without permission, that’s pushing things a bit higher, but one brow shoots up as he catches a glimpse of the tattoo at her side.If anyone says anything, he’ll swear she started it. “Danny?”“Yeah?” He clears his throat, voice a touch rougher than it should be.“This…this is jus’….a precaution, right?” She sounds younger than she is, and more afraid than he is.“Yeah, yeah it is. I promise you’ll be fine.”

forgets to run the dish washer

Everything kind of falls apart.Rachel is out of town, the place looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane, Grace is running a fever and he’s taken a couple days off but hasn’t slept in a week. He’s ready to pull out his own hair if it will let his daughter sleep for three seconds. And it’s a small mercy when Beth lets herself into his house. Carrying bags of take-out from Mario’s. She kisses his cheek as she takes Gracie from his arms. Presses her wrist to his daughter’s brow and nods to herself. “No, no, no! You don’t wanna do that-”

“Danny, relax. I was going to be a doctor before…” A dark flash across her face. “Before. And you’re no good to her if you don’t grab a bite and get some sleep. “But-”“But nothing. I’m your partner, and you can trust me to always have your back.”

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he wakes up on the couch but the house is quiet. It’s also clean, and he can hear the dishwasher running. He sweeps the throw blanket back and pads barefoot down the hall. Grace’s room is empty and a stab of panic courses through him. And only subsides a few minutes later, when he hovers on the threshold of his bedroom. Grace is asleep, tucked under the covers in the middle of the bed. Beth’s curled up on her side, sleeping in the space he would normally find himself, a small palm resting on Grace’s chest. Both of them look at peace in the glow of the hall light behind him. And for the first time he can recall, that anxiety turns to a sense of calm.“Fever broke ‘bout a’ hour ago,” she murmurs, husky voice thick. “Is jus’ one lil cold, ya can stand down. An’ turn off da ligh’ when ya get some coffee f’ ya self. Now tell me how amazin’ I am an’ go back t’ bed.”

pumps gas for the car

“Is ridiculous, is wha’ is. Like dey no trust us.” She slips into pidgin without thinking about it and Danny can barely follow along when she does.“And when you become a senator for the great state of New Jersey, rookie, then you can attempt to repeal the law. Which dates back to 1949, mind you. And while yes, it might save a few bucks at the pump, think of the impact of tens of thousands of people losing their jobs, and the emotional trauma it would cause amongst adult motorists who would have to then learn how to handle the pump on their own– what? Why are you laughing? This is a very real thing.”

drives when they’re going somewhere

They leave the pump issue behind them and Danny pulls back into traffic. But it doesn’t keep her from closing her eyes and smiling a kind of Mona-Lisa grin. She tried to drive once and he’d snatched the keys out of her hand. Since then she conceded to let him, and it gives her a chance to watch his face from the veil of her lashes. She wonders if he knows how striking his eyes are when he wears that tie. “So, where we goin’, anyway?”“It’s a surprise. You know what a surprise is? It means I’m not going to tell you, that you have to find out when we get there, that’s what it is. And don’t think you can put your toes on the dashboard or stick them out the window. We could be in an accident and then you’d be toeless and of course that would be on me.”

“Whatevah ya say, Danny.”“That’s right. And I say keep your limbs inside the car and don’t distract me. Distracted driving is the number one cause of accidents on the turnpikes. And don’t think I won’t tie you down in the car-seat if I have to.”

“Your wife know ya talk t’me li’dat?”

Danny bites back the first and tenth and seventeenth thing that comes to mind at the tone of her voice and the way her fingers brush his as she reaches for the radio. “Don’t change it, it’s a law too… the Boss never gets changed.”“Who’s changing, turning it up!”

Rachel always hated Springsteen and suddenly he feels like a teenager again, as they both sing along. “Romeo and Juliet, Samson and Delilah, baby you can bet their love they didn’t deny! Your words say split but your words they lie….��cause when we kiss…fire!”

rearranges the furniture

The house looks empty. Sure, the heavier furniture is still there, but more than half the things he’s looked at every day for years are gone. The ghost of Grace’s laughter still echos in the empty corners and the rest of the boxes he’s been packing up are killing him with each shriek of packing tape. Deep down, Danny feels broken, feels himself bleeding out. Sure they had problems, every couple does. And maybe he had chosen to dive deeper into work than might have been necessary to cope with it. But they could have worked things out.

Instead, Rachel decided they needed to separate. And by separate, she meant she was seeing someone else, someone who was more emotionally supportive, someone who also approved of her career. A someone Danny wants to punch dead in the face, over and over again until the bitterness and the rage is gone, until he can see straight. But that won’t bring her back. That won’t get him anything but supervised visits. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes when the door opens again, and Beth picks her way through the minefield of cardboard to come up behind him. He almost flinches when she sets her hand on his shoulder.A minute later, and she hasn’t said anything, and she lets go. Picks up another marker, and writes down the room it’s supposed to go into.“I…I think we’re done here.” He says. “For today, anyway. Thanks for…just thanks.”

“Always.”He’s sure she’s going to say something else. That she’s going to touch him again and if she does, he knows he won’t be able to keep it all in. And then she moves past him and grabs her bag. “Call me.”“I will.” He won’t.When she’s gone, he makes his way to the couch. Lifts one end of it. Sets it down. Grabs the book laying on it, chucks it across the room.

falls asleep with the TV on

A couple months later and Danny knows it’s over. And worse, Rachel’s moved on. They’re fighting over custody, they’re fighting over bills, it’s just like being married without any of the perks. And more and more the bottom of the bottle is the only real comfort he can find. She’s not the one he calls at three in the morning when his words slur and the shakes have subsided. And maybe that should tell him something as his eyes slide past Pesci’s hit while Liotta and De Niro are waiting expectantly for the good news.“Danny? You okay?”“Yeah. I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice. Did I wake you? I could let you go if I did.”“Naw. Was just making coffee. Was gonna go surfing.”There’s a long pause, and he can’t tell if she’s joking. Beth does a lot of things that don’t make sense to him. From ruining a perfectly good slice with some pineapple to knitting doilies for the break-room. To answering his calls when he’s got so much to say that he can’t get a single word out.

“Danny?”“Yeah?”“Hold on. I’m coming over.”She hangs up before he can say no.

He doesn’t protest when she eventually shows up, cuddles up on the couch, runs her fingers through his hair. He doesn’t really know what she says to him when she does bother to talk, but there’s something comforting about the scent of her skin, and the warmth of her lap when he lays his head in it.

gets to use the bathroom first

There’s sun streaming through the window and Beth doesn’t know how long they’ve been asleep, only that there’s pins and needles in her feet and between her shoulders. There’s some talk show on the television as she stirs, but carefully because Danny’s still asleep. She gingerly replaces her thigh with a pillow and inches her way off his couch before she’s realised she’s made a dire mistake, a hiss of pain snaking out between her teeth. And she almost wishes Danny were awake to see the little hop-twitch as she zombies her way to the bathroom, if nothing else it’d be good for a laugh. After she’s done she’s turning on the shower and steals a shirt of his to wear so she can wash the day and night off her skin.Danny’s awake by the time she comes out, towel wrapped around her hair, shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and he’s making coffee, looking only a little worse for the wear. “Didn’t mean t’ wake ya.”“You didn’t.”Pours her a bit of cream and sugar in her cup and slides the cup across the counter.“About last night, Beth. I wanted to-”“Feed me bacon because you’re madly in love with my yahtzee skills? Done deal.”It’s the first smile she’s seen in a while. “Something like that.”

decides the temperature for the ac/heater

“How are you even alive? You can’t be. You’re dead and I never noticed because even from beyond the pearly gates you’re talking. Once your flesh starts liquefying and they assign me someone new I can’t held accountable for anything but modest funeral arrangements. No viking bows with the flaming arrows, for example. But you won’t know because you’re dead now.”Beth is laughing, and it’s a great sound. Threatens to pull a similar one out of him even though the hands she’s tucked into his jacket pockets are icicles. He’s half tempted to shake her off and make her find gloves or a nuclear reactor to get some heat into her skin.Instead, he leaves her hands where they are, and dips down to grab her around her knees, giving her a little boost up. It doesn’t succeed as expected because a moment later, her arms are wrapping around his shoulders.“What are ya doing?!”“Clearly I am carrying you piggy back. Didn’t they have that where you come from? It would do us no good if you turn into an iceberg before I can get you inside and warm you up. I’ll turn up the heater to the same internal temperature as the sun and build you a fire. But then you’re making me cocoa and we’re going to watch the game.”

sets up holiday decorations

It all looks very, very wrong.  No bright multi-coloured bulbs hang from the eaves, none shine in the windows. As far as Beth could tell, there weren’t any lights at all. Except for the occasional blue flicker. And while she could live without the excitement of pumpkins and paper ghosts and cotton spiderwebs at Halloween ~they were often in the patrol car, working over~ Christmas was second only to Thanksgiving when it came to Danny Williams. She lets herself in and finds him on the couch, head in his hands, and he hasn’t shaved or slept in days, based on the shadows along his jaw and under his eyes in the faint glow of the television and her heart sinks somewhere into her stomach. Instead of the boxes of decorations he’s got that are bigger than she is, there’s suitcases. She blinks back the sudden wetness in her eyes.“Hey.”“Hey.”

“When’s ya flight?”“Beth.” He stands up, takes a step, hesitates.“Naw, naw. Ya goddah go, right? No can live when ya heart’s across the world.” She knows this because hers is breaking right in front of him and she locks it up tight. The other thing she knows about Danny Williams is that Gracie is everything to him. Before she knows it, he treks his way over, wraps his arms around her waist, pulls her close. Her hands rest on his shoulders and she buries her face in his neck.

leaves the lights on

In the months that go by, the world becomes increasingly harder. She hates her new partner simply because he’s not Danny. Doesn’t have the detective’s instincts, doesn’t have the charm or the wit and she realises just how much she might actually hate Jersey without him. The snow that was once enchanting robs her very will to live and the dark that she could survive with him close by becomes insurmountable, no matter how many lights she leaves on. The daily phone-calls dwindle to a text now and again, and she can tell something is wrong by what he’s not telling her.She doesn’t think he reconciled with Rachel. She doesn’t think he likes Hawai’i. Maybe he hates his partner too. She makes the arrangements. Puts in for a transfer. Turns in notice. Locks her Brooklyn apartment up securely, and remembers the grief he’s given her in the past about not moving to Jersey and instead commuting.This was never how Beth expected to go home. But it feels like it’s the only thing she can do.

uses the bathroom with the door open

“You’re a troglodyte. A barbarian. Didn’t anyone teach you how to knock, Steven?”

Black slacks, that dark blue shirt that turned his eyes into something breath-taking that she never had words for. Blonde hair a little brighter from the sun exposure, slicked back into perfection. From the back he’s everything she remembers, and she smiles, tracing the edge of her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.“Been a year an’ already ya forgot about me, Danny? I’m...I’m crushed.”Every muscle in his body stiffens and if she were that kind of person, she’d imagine exactly how much colour drains from his face, and hands tighten on his... What she doesn’t have to imagine is the little shake before everything’s going back and she can hear the zipper before he even manages to turn around. The look on his face as he debates washing his hands or coming at her. He chooses to wash.“Beth? You took vacation just to come all the way here?” He quickly dries off and then it’s all hands on her waist, hoisting her up in the air until it’s all she can do to put her arms around his neck and hug him tight. There’s a chaste kiss or two and some laughing and more hugging.

“Not exactly. I came...home.”“To stay?”“Yeah. To stay.”

fixes the plumbing (or calls the plumber)

“You’re doing it wrong. You need a different kind of thing-”“Is that the professional term? Thing?”“Yeah, you know the thing. The wrench thing.”“Oh, that is so helpful. I don’t know how I could have lived this long without knowing that.”“You don’t have to be so sensitive, but it will stop making the squeaking noise if you-”“Do you want to come down here and do this? Mr Navy Seal who is secretly a god of leaking sinks. Please by all means-”Beth is hiding in her bathroom, but even that doesn’t drown out the sound of Danny and Steve ~a piece of her past come back into her life~ from bickering with each other. She never realised how much alike they are though their differences could be used in a text book case. And if Beth had to lose Danny to someone else, him having Stevie as his partner on their Task Force is the only way it’s okay. She’s still at HPD and they still spend time together as family does.“Yeah, mahalo. No no. Bo da dem still at it, try for fix. Yes, I need someone come out, fix sink before dey destroy my kitchen, try an’ mahalo. A’ole pilikia. Mahalo.”

Hopefully the plumber would arrive before Beth has to strangle them both, and figure out how to hide the bodies.